


Harmonic

by Pianogirl



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 22:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pianogirl/pseuds/Pianogirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stef and Van share their love of music, and Stef learns one of Van’s secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harmonic

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this was totally supposed to be a 500-word bit of fluff to tide me over until I can get started on some longer Valdemar fic plot bunnies. Um, oops. This is my first (but not to be last!) attempt at writing in this fandom, and it’s unbetaed, so feedback is most appreciated.

It’s an old hurt, Vanyel’s lack of the Bardic Gift, but Stef knows it’s there. In some ways it’s the first hurt, and the most innocent -- his first dreams to be dashed, buried under the layers of loss that have followed.

Vanyel is a master of hiding his emotions, as Stef well knows, but between the lifebond and his own history of living by his wits, he’s learned to read Van as well as anyone ever can, excepting Yfandes. So he knows the whisper of longing that pulses through him when he picks up an instrument, feels the echo of old dreams long dead but still mourned when he listens to Stef play.

What would Vanyel’s life be, if he’d had that Gift? A life filled with music and beauty, no bone-crushing weight of duty and sacrifice, simple joys of love and home with no tragedy underlying them, no disaster waiting to yank them away.

With all his heart, Stef mourns for the Vanyel who lost those things... but that Vanyel is not his Vanyel. His Vanyel is strong and proud and weary, and he wouldn’t choose those dreams now if they were offered him, would never give up Stef for someone less complicated or less difficult. Still, he’s not one to romanticize hardship. He’d move heaven and earth to keep another from going through what he did -- has done that, in fact, for Medren.

That young, yearning, dream-dashed Vanyel is a part of his Vanyel, the first part, the part that had to be scarred over for Vanyel to become hero and legend and love. And sometimes Stef wishes he could do more to soothe those hidden scars, so that they didn’t pull and twinge and ache when Van is surprised into remembering their existence.

He isn’t sure, the first time he suggests it, whether making music together is one of those things that will prod painfully at Van’s memories or be a balm to them. He just knows he has to ask, because music and Van are the two most important things in his life, and sharing them with each other is dream come true.

He’s exhausted when it happens, which doesn’t affect his boundaries at all -- at this point, it’s more or less his natural state -- but he thinks, if Van doesn’t go for it, he can pass it off as a momentary brainstorm rather than a longtime fantasy. His fingers are raw from the amount of playing he’s been doing for the King, but he’s feeling restless in a way that only music can cure, and his voice is fine. He’s tired of playing music as a medical delivery system, he wants to play it as a living thing, beauty created for its own purpose and nothing more.

“Duet?” he asks, when he’s sprawled ungracefully across the couch in Van’s quarters. Van has just set aside the pile of border patrol reports he’s been reviewing. They’ve been trying this more, lately: sharing space and silently soaking up the other’s presence even when mutual responsibilities prevent anything more intimate. “I’ve been wanting to try this new Ballad of Martyrs, though it’s not really appropriate to the Court mood these days. Terribly complex vocals. Care to give it a try with me? I can’t play any more today, but if you could...?” He gestures at his lute, leaning up against the wall in its worn case. “And I could sing...?”

Van studies him a moment with his polite mask on, which just means that he’s feeling a lot of different things and hasn’t figured out yet which of them take precedence. He doesn’t hide from Stef -- it’s something they’ve worked on and fought over -- but sometimes it takes him a little time to process emotions and translate them to his face. They aren’t false, Stef knows, but Van has had to relearn how to be without a mask. It makes his heart hurt to watch, every single time.

Stef can feel muted longing, tentative joy, and a thread of inexplicable fear pulsing through the lifebond, though he tries to respect Van’s privacy, as much as he can, and not push into the bond to read more than Van wants to share.

Finally, Van inclines his head, gives Stef one of his rare sweet smiles that almost makes them look of an age, and says “I’d like that. Very much.”

Stef grins back and tries very hard not to bounce in his seat like an overeager trainee.

Van adds, “Don’t use the Gift, though, I don’t want you completely dead to the world when we’re done,” and his smile turns a tad wicked.

“Not a chance,” Stef promises, and maneuvers himself with exaggerated effort into a sitting position as Vanyel retrieves the lute and gently checks the tuning.

“The music’s in my bag,” Stef offers helpfully, not moving an inch, and Vanyel rolls his eyes as he retrieves it.

“Lazy,” he says fondly, stealing a light, lingering kiss before he resumes his seat.

“Always.”

Van’s fingers trip over the strings a few times as he plucks delicately through the intro, and Stef realizes with a start that he’s _shy_ ; it’s simultaneously adorable and horribly wrong, and he sends a pulse of love and encouragement through the bond that causes Vanyel to blush bright red and fumble out of the song entirely. He huffs in frustration, muttering under his breath and massaging the muscle between thumb and pointer finger, a stress habit Stef has noticed before but still doesn’t understand.

“ _Ashke_ ,” he says, “if you’re tired, we don’t have to...”

“No, no.” Vanyel shakes his head. “I’m fine. I’m being silly.”

“Yes, you’re such an empty-headed little demonslayer hero to us all,” Stef rejoins tartly, and feels immensely rewarded by the smile that tugs reluctantly at Van’s mouth.

“Regardless, I _would_ like to play with you. I suppose I’m a little nervous of falling short. You with your Bardic training and all.”

Stef snorts and slides off the couch to kneel in front of Vanyel, placing his hands on Van’s knees.

“I don’t want to play with you for your skill, I want to play with you to play with _you_. It’s like...” Stef casts around for an appropriate metaphor but can only come up with a complaint he’d heard in his old circles, about good clients lost. Well, it’s apt, at least. “It’s like why a man prefers his wife to a whore. Less skill, maybe, but the experience is more meaningful. More real.” Stef is gazing intently at Van as he speaks, and he’s startled when Van pales to a degree that’s really quite alarming, given how pale he is to start. “What?”

Van swallows. His mouth works, but he doesn’t speak. Stef feels his heart drop.

“Van, I didn’t mean to offend... or to imply that... oh gods, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, you don’t want to hear...”

“No,” Van interrupts, shaking his head. He swallows a few more times, and Stef waits him out, concerned. “No, it’s not that, it’s just...” He stops, takes a deep breath, and shakes himself into stillness. “What you said, it’s just... well, it’s like something, uh, someone told me. A long time ago. Ah, not too long after I was rejected from Bardic, in fact.”

Tylendel, then. If it had been Savil, Van would have just said. And yes, that is... strange. Stef shivers. It feels like a ghost has walked right through him. He and Vanyel stare at each other for one long, spooky, moment, and then Van seems to shrug it off and hauls him upward for a brisk, almost dismissive kiss.

“It’s not important,” Van says, and normally Stef protests when Van tries to change the subject like that, but in this case he’s just as glad to leave the topic in the dust. “Let’s try this again. I think I just needed to get warmed up.” A bemused smile flickers over his face and then is gone as fast as it appeared.

Vanyel plucks out the introduction again, sure-fingered and steady this time, and when Stef sits up straight and draws a deep breath to join him on the first verse, it’s like they’ve been playing together forever. Stef’s voice soars despite his fatigue, a rich, emotive tenor grinding dissonantly against the lute’s harmonies and then resolving unexpectedly into open intervals that almost echo in their severity. The effect is eerie, a hollow, anxious contrast to the march-like hero’s odes normally preferred in public performances. This is complex, and unsettling, and a little too real, and it comes alive in Stef’s voice and Vanyel’s hands.

By the second verse, Van is improvising, plucking out a countermelody to Stef’s tune that is surprisingly effective; Stef makes a mental note to jot it down later. When they reach the second chorus, Van takes a breath and joins in, crafting a baritone harmony that is mostly fourths and fifths and octaves down from Stef’s voice, accenting the weird chant-like qualities of the song and making it sound even more dirge-like. Stef has to admire Van’s instincts. Their voices blend seamlessly, and when he catches Van’s eye for a moment, there’s awe and tenderness there, and an excitement, a simple joy, that takes ten years off of Vanyel’s lined face.

And then Stef feels something, some emotion welling up under the music and then living _inside_ it, dancing in the plucked notes of the lute. He looks at Vanyel in shock, and Vanyel meets his gaze with a pained, sheepish half-smile, and then the emotion swells for a moment -- sacrifice and relief and determination and fear and longing and peace -- before fading away into the mourning, heroic strains of the music alone.

(Later, when he leaves Vanyel to face Leareth alone at the northern pass and is fleeing for help with Yfandes, Stefen will remember what he feels now, the peace most of all.)

There’s a moment of unrehearsed silence after the song ends.

Stef finally breaks into the hush. “You have...” He’s not sure where to go with that, so he stops, looking at Vanyel a little helplessly.

Van inclines his head, expression carefully blank. “The Bardic Gift. Yes. Just a little.”

“How...?”

“When Ty-- when my Heraldic gifts were... activated. _All_ the potential channels were burned open. Turned out there was some Bardic potential, too, just... after that night, it didn’t matter anymore. It wasn’t the path I could take, even with... well. I haven’t used it much. One of the many ironies of my life. I...”

He seems to be casting about for what to say next.

“Van,” Stef says firmly, because he’s learned that Vanyel will rarely reach for another person, even his lifebonded, without some prodding, “Come here.”

Van sets the lute carefully aside and joins Stef on the couch, laughing a little as he’s maneuvered into a supine position, his head cradled on Stef’s lap.

“Who else knows?” Stef asks, scratching lightly over Vanyel’s scalp as he cards through his hair.

“Just Savil,” Van mumbles. His eyes drift closed. Stef hums a little and slouches back into a more comfortable position. Reaching on instinct for Van’s hand, he digs his thumb into the muscle Van massaged earlier, working carefully, mindful of scar tissue he’s never asked about. He grins at Van’s appreciative groan. Some things have always been easy between them.

“You play beautifully,” Stef says after a moment, unsure how this will be received.

Vanyel sighs, and about half the tension drains from his body.

“Thank you, _ashke_ ,” he says simply.

Stef pokes his belly lightly. “Of course, practice would help immensely.”

Van smiles, eyes still closed. “I’ve always found solo practice to be incredibly dull.” It’s a blatant lie, though Stef isn’t sure how he knows that. He lets it pass.

“You’re in luck, then, that I am moved to offer my services as your duet partner.”

“Lucky indeed.” Van snakes an arm up and pulls Stef down for a kiss, unerringly finding the back of his neck without bothering to open his eyes.

Stef lets himself be pulled.

They move in perfect harmony, point and counterpoint, layering emotion and sensation, secrets and story, spinning out shared time, all adding up to something more than two.

**Author's Note:**

> According to Wikipedia: "A guitar harmonic is a musical note played by preventing or amplifying vibration of certain overtones of a guitar string... When a guitar string is plucked normally, the ear tends to hear the fundamental frequency most prominently, colored by the presence of integer multiples of that frequency. The lowest frequency of vibration along the entire length of the string is known as the fundamental, while higher frequencies are referred to as overtones. The fundamental and overtones, when sounded together, are perceived by the listener as a single tone...”
> 
> My little music nerd self danced for joy at this perfect metaphor for whatever Tylendel and Stefen are.


End file.
